The present invention is directed toward the art of communication systems and, more particularly, to industrial communication and control systems of the type including multiple data and command producer devices connected via diverse media types to multiple data and command consumer devices and will be described with particular reference thereto. However, it is to be appreciated that the present invention finds application in any network system where command, data, or other information is exchanged between a plurality of nodes over a variety of media types.
There are many prior art communication systems that rely on a bus type hardware topology to support fast information transfer between multiple communication modules and repeater devices within an industrial application. Systems of this type are commonly referred to as multi-drop communication systems. Although such multi-drop communication systems using bus type topologies are well suited for efficient communication and data transfer, expanding those systems, once installed, to include additional devices is difficult. In that regard, one problem associated with traditional multi-drop communication networks is that they are expandable only at the outer two ends of the bus. This being the case, it is often impossible to freely add communication devices at locations in the network where they may be most needed, without re-configuring the entire network anew.
Therefore, it is desirable to provide an improved industrial control network, preferably a modular communication repeater system, of the type which makes it easy to exchange, add, and subtract communication modules anywhere within the system as needed without dismantling the network and reconfiguring the system anew.
It is also desirable to provide a communication system that supports not only all standard network topologies such as, for example, bus, star, and ring topologies but one that supports all forms of custom or specialized topologies as well. It would further be desirable to be able to expand the communication network to use additional communication devices as needed and where needed regardless of the network topology.
It is also desirable to provide an industrial modular repeater system of the type that supports multiple media types using multiple technologies such as copper based, fiber based, and broadcast type media, hardware, and methods. A preferred repeater system would be adaptable for use with twisted pair, co-axial cable, IR, RF, glass, plastic, and other media types within a single communication system.